A. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to optical transport networks, and more particularly to the management of skew across a wave division multiplexed network.
B. Background of the Invention
Optical networks are able to communicate information at high data rates. An optical transport system 10 is shown in FIG. 1, with multiple intermediate nodes and routes 16 between source 12 and destination 14. Nodes n1-n6 in a network are provided as an exemplary network with spatial diversity in the span, or segments separating nodes, e.g., across a geographic area. Multiple communication paths between a source node and destination node are provided across the network. The transport system might consider the route length, the traffic load, the route cost, latency property, and ability to compensate for skew, among other factors, for a given signal when choosing a path within the network on which to transport the signal. For example, a high quality of service (“QoS”) request might require a given signal be transported on a route between a source and a destination with the lowest amount of latency. Alternatively, as traffic data rates continue to mushroom, carriers typically resort to routing signals on alternative and/or relatively higher latency paths, which often times span a longer overall distance than the preferred path. Additionally, these longer paths typically have more nodes, which usually translates into compromised timing properties for the signal at the receiver.